Process Model API

Who is the primary contact for this API?Nasko Oskov (nasko@chromium.org), Charlie Reis (creis@chromium.org)

Who will be responsible for this API? (Team please, not an individual)

Site Isolation

OverviewAdd chrome.processes API that lets extensions access data about the Chrome’s process model, such as process ID and CPU usage.

Use casesWeb applications are becoming more complex and resource demanding, and power users may want a better view of which pages are responsible for resource use. It may also be useful as a debugging or diagnosis tool, to see which tabs are currently sharing fate. Here are a few types of extensions that could use this API:

A Browser Action showing all tabs sharing the current process. All of these tabs would slow down or crash together if something went wrong.

A Browser Action showing the current CPU or memory use of the tab's process with a utilization graph, much like the Windows Task Manager icon in the system tray.

An extension that automatically restores all affected tabs if a process crashes, unless the crash repeats itself (much like IE8).

An extension that implements a custom task manager, perhaps with graphs or other visualizations.

Do you know anyone else, internal or external, that is also interested in this API?Chris Bentzel and Erik Kay have expressed interest in using this API to prototype different policies for process management (such as killing prerender processes). Patrick Stinson has expressed interest in creating a custom “Aw-snap” screen to use in kiosk scenarios and reload the current URL.

Could this API be part of the web platform?Unlikely, because it is mainly useful in multi-process browser architectures. While an increasing number of browsers are moving toward such architectures, it's certainly not a requirement for all web browsers. It also could expose functionality specific to the Chromium process model in the future.

Do you expect this API to be fairly stable? How might it be extended or changed in the future?Yes. The API will expose functionality that is already present in the Task Manager and unlikely to disappear in the future.

The initial version of the API will not include memory details other than the private memory for the process. The reason is the complexity of adding memory usage information, which needs to be retrieved in asynchronous model (through a MemoryDetails object). In addition, for getting the overall memory usage of the browser, we need platform specific logic for calculating the data. The goal is to release an initial version to allow feedback on the API and its usage, with a follow up update adding the extra information.List every UI surface belonging to or potentially affected by your API:The API will not affect UI surface. It will expose internal browser data to extensions, which can author their own UI based on the data.

How could this API be abused?Like most extension APIs, it could be used to leak information about the user's browsing habits, such as the number of processes running or CPU usage patterns. It could also be used to load attack pages in the same process as another page, but that can already be done without this API using iframes. It could be used as a DoS tool by crashing particular renderer processes, but extensions can already do this by visiting "about:crash" in a given tab.

Alright Doctor, one last challenge: Could a consumer of your API cause any permanent change to the user’s system using your API that would not be reversed when that consumer is removed from the system?No, the API will provide access to the process model only. The only state change the API will allow is to terminate child processes, which should not lead to any permanent changes to the system.

How would you implement your desired features if this API didn't exist?We are not aware of another way to obtain this information. Some of the data (though not CPU usage) is provided by about:memory, but extensions are not allowed to load this page to parse its contents. Even if about:memory could be loaded and parsed by extensions, it would be difficult to match a given tab to a process simply by its title.

Draft API spec

API reference: chrome.processes

Methods:

terminatechrome.experimental.processes.terminate(integer processId, optional function callback)Terminates the specified Chrome process. For renderer processes, it is equivalent to visiting about:crash, but without changing the tab's URL.Parameters

A dictionary of Process objects for each requested process that is a live child process of the current browser process, indexed by process ID. Metrics requiring aggregation over time will not be populated in each Process object.

Events:

onCreatedchrome.experimental.processes.onCreated.addListener(function(Process process) {...});Fires when a new process is created.Parameters

process ( Process )

Details of the process that was created. Metrics requiring aggregation over time will not be populated in the object.

onExitedchrome.experimental.processes.onExited.addListener(function(integer processId, integer exitType, integer exitCode) {...});Fires when a process is terminated, either cleanly or due to a crash.Parameters

processId ( integer )

The ID of the process that exited.

exitType ( integer )

The type of exit that occurred for the process - normal, abnormal, killed, crashed. Only available for renderer processes.

exitCode ( optional integer )

The exit code if the process exited abnormally. Only available for renderer processes.

A dictionary of updated Process objects for each live process in the browser, indexed by process ID. Metrics requiring aggregation over time will be populated in each Process object.

onUpdatedWithMemorychrome.experimental.processes.onUpdatedWithMemory.addListener(function(object processes) {...});Fires each time the Chrome Task Manager updates its process statistics, providing a dictionary of updated Process objects, indexed by process ID. Identical to onUpdate, with the addition of memory usage details included in each Process object. Note, collecting memory usage information incurs extra CPU usage and should only be listened for when needed.Parameters

processes ( object )

A dictionary of updated Process objects for each live process in the browser, indexed by process ID. Memory usage details will be included in each Process object.

Types:

Cache( object )The Cache object contains information about the size and utilization of a cache used by Chrome.size ( integer )

The size of the cache, in bytes.

liveSize ( integer )

The part of the cache that is utilized, in bytes.

Process( object )The Process object contains various types of information about the underlying OS process. Some of the information, such as cpu or sqliteMemory, needs to be collected over time. Such data is present in the object only when it is part of a callback for the onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory events and not for getProcessInfo. Also, privateMemory is expensive to measure, so it is only present in the object when it is part of a callback for onUpdatedWithMemory or getProcessInfo with the includeMemory flag. id ( integer )The unique ID of the process provided by Chrome. osProcessId ( integer )

Array of Tab IDs that have a page rendered by this process. The list will be non-empty for renderer processes only.

cpu ( optional number )

The most recent measurement of the process's CPU usage, between 0 and 100%. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory.

privateMemory ( optional number )

The most recent measurement of the process's private memory usage, in bytes. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdatedWithMemory or getProcessInfo with the includeMemory flag.

network ( optional number )

The most recent measurement of the process's network usage, in bytes per second. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory.

jsMemoryAllocated ( optional number )

The most recent measurement of the process’s JavaScript allocated memory, in bytes. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory.

jsMemoryUsed ( optional number )

The most recent measurement of the process’s JavaScript memory used, in bytes. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory.

sqliteMemory ( optional number )

The most recent measurement of the process’s SQLite memory usage, in bytes. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory.

fps ( optional number )

The most recent measurement of the process’s frames per section. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory.

imageCache ( optional object )

The most recent information about the image cache for the process. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory.

scriptCache ( optional object )

The most recent information about the script cache for the process. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory.

cssCache ( optional object )

The most recent information about the CSS cache for the process. Only available when receiving the object as part of a callback from onUpdated or onUpdatedWithMemory.

Open questions

Does the Tab object need a process ID added to it?

After discussion with Charlie Reis, it will be best to be a list or tree structure, to accommodate future out of process IFrame rendering work. Ideally we can include plugin processes as Process objects and form a full tree of all processes involved in rendering a single tab.

Should Site Instance be exposed through the API?

At this point in time it is hard to come up with a good example other than some of our own visualizing/debugging. If any compelling usage presents itself, we can see if it justifies including the information. For now I don't think it is worthwhile information to expose.

Should we maintain a list of tabs associated with a process, or should we let developers do that by looping over the current tabs?